My RingGo Ordeal (by alaric)
Many months ago, I happened to park my red van in a car park in Swindon, that had a facility to pay by card over the phone. Which was great, because I didn't have enough cash for the ticket. All was well.
But then today, I parked my new orange van in a car park in Stroud, that has the same facility provided by the same operator. So when I ring the number, it recognises me, and says "To park your red Ford Transit, registration censored, in location some number, please press 1; to park elsewhere, press 2".
So I press 2. And it asks me the number of my location (a number printed on the sign). And it asks me for payment details. Then it says "Thanks! You now have a parking ticket! If you want to contact us, check out our web site on www.myringgo.com!" And hangs up.
I note that it hasn't asked me my vehicle registration; in other words, it's assumed I'm still in the same vehicle since I rang from the same number, and gave me no option to do otherwise. It didn't even actually confirm what I was paying for; it said what the parking would cost, but otherwise just asked me questions, and never said "Ok, are you sure you want to pay amount on this card to park registration in location for three days?" - so I continued through the process, expecting to be asked if it was the same vehicle or if I had a new one, and then suddenly found myself hung up and having paid to park the wrong van.
Anyway, my train is then arriving, so I jump on it, open my laptop, and connect to the wonders of the Mobile Internet: 25% packet loss and an average ping round trip time of 15,000ms (yes, fifteen seconds) but sometimes 80,000ms (yes, a minute and twenty seconds). I go to said URL, and it's reasonably usable; but once I've had my PIN sent to my mobile and logged in, it switches to SSL.
SSL, it seems, is highly latency sensitive, since it then proceeds to take five to ten minutes to load each page, as I excruciatingly navigate their menus. I find a list of vehicles, and lo, there's my red van listed - and marked as "locked" since it's currently got an active parking session, so it can't be edited. But it suggests that you can use the Contact Us form to ask them to edit a locked vehicle for you. There's no number to ring apart from the number to talk to the automated booking system that assumes I'm still in a red van; so I go to the form, and have to jump through all the hoops of the automated systems that try and stop people from actually talking to a human, confirming I've read the FAQs and all that (thankfully, the FAQs are on plain HTTP, so quite usable), and of course having to choose my type of query from a list (where most of the options try and direct you to a FAQ or another part of the site).
There's an option for Incorrect Vehicle! So I go for that. And lo, it takes me to the page to edit my vehicles, telling me I can't edit my red van because it's currently parked. So I had to go back through the system to try and find a generic problem type that will get me to a human, then submit a query. I submit the form, and it says they'll get back to me.
If they've clamped or towed my van when I get back, or try and fine me, I'll be ANGRY...
UPDATES: See the comments for the ONGOING STORY!
Wed 10th Jun 2009 8:40 pm 
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By @ndy, Wed 10th Jun 2009 @ 9:37 pm
Yet another reason you really should have just painted "This is the red van" on the side. 🙂
Good luck, especially if you have to unleash "Whupass". I'm currently practicing my legal based "Whupass" too.
By sarah, Wed 10th Jun 2009 @ 10:53 pm
If they clamp it or tow it away we will have to break out the big sticks!
By alaric, Thu 11th Jun 2009 @ 9:32 am
I got a response at 8am this morning:
A fine would be considered valid? Valid, my arse!
By alaric, Sat 13th Jun 2009 @ 7:37 pm
When I came back to the van, I found two parking tickets, for the 11th and the 12th, demanding £80.
So I went onto the MyRingGo site and found that I had a nice VAT receipt for parking from the 10th to the 12th inclusive that I could print out, bearing the correct registration (and, lo, matching the registration printed on the parking tickets).
I think this counts as "instant win" in the fine appeals process...
By Alaric Snell-Pym, Mon 10th Aug 2009 @ 10:10 am
...time passes...
Then I receive a letter dated 4th August, from "Roxburghe Debt Collectors", stating that I've not paid my parking fine nor provided satisfactory grounds for appeal, and attempting legal whupass.
I'm replying with a copy of the letter and receipt I posted off before, and a new covering letter... sigh
Much as I dread the time-sink of it going to court, I'd like to see them try to defend their case.
By Adam Smith, Fri 6th Aug 2010 @ 3:42 pm
Hate to say it but think it was your mistake! I have a vehicle registered at a current location and I have just tried to park a different vehicle at a different location and I was able to. Because you pressed 2 you were confirming that you wanted to park the red van but in a different location. I think if you had held on it would have asked if you want to register a new vehicle (option 9, after option 2). To be fair to you, you do have to go through a few menu's but you can definately do what you needed to do. But you have the VAT receipts so you should be fine
By alaric, Tue 10th Aug 2010 @ 9:56 pm
Interesting... has that changed? It has been over a year since The Incident. What's the wording of the menu prompts? I'm not normally one to jump the gun on interactive voice response systems, but if 2 had sounded like the option I wanted, I might not have waited until later.
...let's do an experiment!
Ok, it says:
"To park your [existing veh details] at location [number] press 1. Or to park the same vehicle in another location press 2. If you want to park another vehicle, please press 9"
...it DEFINITELY wasn't that clear when I made the ill-fated call; unless I just misheard it at the time, I suspect that the ability to park a different vehicle has been added since?
By Dave, Sat 21st Aug 2010 @ 7:56 pm
Check out the advice given here;
http://forums.pepipoo.com/lofiversion/index.php/t47142.html